Actually, it's a double joke judging from this article that hit the wires Wednesday:
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - To meet the demand for troops in Iraq, the military has been deploying some National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers who aren't fit for combat...
David Lloyd, a 44-year-old mechanic with the Tennessee National Guard, died of a heart attack in Iraq last August. His wife, Pamela Lloyd, said her husband didn't know he'd had a problem, but his autopsy showed three blockages in his coronary arteries...
"They funneled us through the medical part: boom, boom, boom," said Michael Scott, an Iowa National Guardsman who had a herniated disc. "They let it be known they weren't real interested in hearing about stuff. `No, you're fine right now.'"...
How many soldiers are unfit is unclear. Each soldier who spoke with Knight Ridder said he or she knew of others who - like themselves - were sent to Iraq despite health problems ranging from allergies requiring refrigerated medications to heart disease.
Several also said many soldiers weren't given physicals but only were asked a few cursory questions about their health by the medical screeners...
Nearly every one of the soldiers interviewed had to be medically evacuated out of Iraq because battlefield conditions exacerbated their health problems.
Bush's response has been to giggle about what was THE MAJOR REASON for invasion. Of course, considering that he's also seen fit to play fly-boy, to crassly announce "bring 'em on" at the prospect of attacks on our soldiers, and has an ongoing policy of ignoring the caskets of the dead when they're flown back to the US (neither does Bush attend funerals, and he's been remarkably stingy with his time when it comes to the wounded--although he seems to have PLENTY of time for fundraising)--why not send off to war those folks who have prior medical conditions? Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if Bush were to "volunteer" these folks for dangerous assignments.
It's amazing how the right wingnuts act as if THEY are the ones who "really" are concerned about our soldiers, when their hero Bush is busy CUTTING the Veteran's Affairs budget while simultaneously rubberstamping the marching orders of soldiers who should be under a physician's care. Of course, they'll respond with the inevitable "they knew what they were getting into when they enlisted," which, as I've posted below, is simply the 21st century equivalent of figuratively spitting on the troops. Oh, yeah: war protesters never actually DID that, contrary to popular myth. But it wouldn't surprise me at all if some right wing agent provacateurs did. That's right up their alley.
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